Polar Exploration
Departs 24th June 2008, from Dover, for 15 nights.
Overview | Lecturers | Shore Excursions | Itinerary | Price | Deck Plans
Heading North from Dover in early summer, two nights’ sailing bring us to Norwegian waters and the largest town on the country’s northwest coast, Alesund. From here your exclusive Civilisations excursion delivers you to Giske Island, also
known as Saga Island, birthplace of Rollo, the chieftain who was responsible for the Norse settlement of what became Normandy.
The island’s 900-year old marble church, once owned by the powerful Giske family, was where in the 9th century King Harald Harfagre married Tora and united Norway into a single country. We continue to the Avarvak, the Artic Museum at
Brandel. Founded in 1981, it aims to preserve the traditions of western Norway, including sealing and other polar activities. After this visit we tour Alesund.
In Tromsø, we visit the Polar Museum, opened in 1978, fifty years to the day that Roald Amundson left the town on his last expedition.We then travel through the busy city centre to the modern, iceberg-shaped Polaria – the polar environmental centre. Here the polar areas and the Barents region are presented through various exhibitions and a spectacular film shown on a magnificent 225-degree screen. From here we pass through very life-like conditions of snow and howling winds.There is also an interesting aquarium filled with fish from the area, as well as curious seals
that peer down from above as we pass through a tunnel underneath one of the aquariums.
Navigating Bear Island, there’s the chance of glimpsing white whales, before we reach Longyearbyen, capital of Spitsbergen, and its awe-inspiring stark mountain peaks and spectacular glaciers.While at Ny Alesund, broken pack ice nudges the hull as we approach the vast glacier that reaches down to the sea.
From Bergen we take a four–and-half hours tour through Norway old and new, via the town’s beautiful outskirts, its fjord, lake and coastal districts. A century earlier, most of Bergen’s population survived on fishing and small scale farming, while today oil and natural gas industries predominate. We pass small fishing villages on our way to Oygarden, where we visit the coastal museum and learn more of local life from the 1800s to the present day, and also enjoy a local treat - coffee with lappes (pancakes with strawberry jam and sour cream).
Leaving Bergen at evening, a day’s cruising brings us back to the white cliffs of Dover and home at breakfast time.
